Amazon.com Inc. shares gained more than 1% to trade near $245 Thursday as investors cheered strong early performance from Prime Day sales and continued momentum in the company's cloud and artificial intelligence businesses.

The e-commerce and technology giant is benefiting from robust consumer spending during its major summer shopping event while its Amazon Web Services division capitalizes on enterprise demand for AI infrastructure. With fiscal second-quarter results scheduled for late July, analysts expect another solid report highlighting growth across retail, advertising and cloud segments.

Amazon reported first-quarter revenue of $181.5 billion, up 17% year-over-year, with AWS posting 28% growth to $37.6 billion — its fastest pace in several years. The performance underscored the company's dual strengths in consumer retail and high-margin cloud services amid heavy investments in AI capabilities.

Prime Day, traditionally one of Amazon's largest sales events, has reportedly generated billions in sales this year, building on the company's dominance in online shopping. Early indicators suggest strong participation from Prime members, who benefit from exclusive deals, fast shipping and digital content perks.

AWS remains a key growth engine, with analysts highlighting accelerating demand for generative AI services. The division's operating margins have expanded as Amazon optimizes its infrastructure and introduces specialized chips and tools for AI workloads.

The company has committed substantial capital expenditures — projected around $200 billion for the year — to expand data center capacity and........

© International Business Times